New SVMH CEO looks at hospital with optimism

New Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital CEO Pete Delgado wants to make the public district health care system his "last stop" at the end of a lengthy career, and retire locally.

Delgado, a 28-year veteran of health care administration, recently completed a decade at the helm of the giant Los Angeles County-USC Healthcare Network and flirted with other large-scale health organizations before settling on relatively small Salinas Valley Memorial.

The Texas native who grew up working with his father on jobs no one else wanted said he took himself out of the running for the top spot at Dallas' Parkland Health & Hospital System, where he had been declared a finalist, to take the Salinas job. He had previously been named as a top candidate for Cook County Health and Hospitals System in Chicago.

During an interview on Tuesday, 60-year-old Delgado lauded what he called a "high-performing organization" with a dedicated board, medical staff and employees, and top-quality scores.

He dismissed the hospital's recent challenges as relatively minor stumbling blocks. During the past few years, the organization has absorbed the exit of longtime CEO Sam Downing amid questions about his retirement pay, questions about executive pay, layoffs and cost-cutting, labor strife and a state audit, along with an ultimately fruitless quest for affiliation with another health care organization.

"I'm the kind of guy who looks at the cup as half full," Delgado said. "There are a number of positives about this organization. I don't know about the fender-benders or bumps in the road they've had in the past, but I like to look at the things I've got to work with and I've got a lot of good things to work with. I feel very good about what I've inherited here."

Delgado, who took over the top position on April 1 and will be officially introduced at Thursday's board meeting, said his goal, like all CEOs, is to leave a legacy. He said Salinas Valley Memorial had already "made a lot of progress" on key initiatives, including aligning costs with revenue and clinical integration, and said the organization is well-prepared to handle the demands of health care reform. He said his goal is to continue building on the progress made while focusing on additional opportunities for the hospital to improve and succeed as a stand-alone entity.

"I want to make sure we're hitting the mark," he said. "I want to make sure we're the people's choice going forward."

Delgado was the hospital board's back-up choice after Matt Gerlach of Glendale backed out. Two other top choices had withdrawn their names after the first round of the hospital's search for a new CEO.

While at LAC+USC, Delgado oversaw the consolidation of two hospital buildings into a new, 676-bed medical center teaching facility, and oversaw a network that included a Level 1 trauma center, three comprehensive clinics and a specialty clinic complex.

While news reports indicate he struggled with emergency room overcrowding, Delgado said he was proud of the work he did in improving quality scores and integrating a dozen federally qualified health clinics into the patient care network.

"There are a number of good things I'm proud of," he said. "I left the (organization) in a better position than when I came."

Delgado said Salinas Valley Memorial reminds him of the smaller health care organizations where he started his career, and compared the beauty of the Central Coast to the North Bay and Napa, where he spent time while working for Kaiser Permanente in the early 1990s.

He began his health care administration career as CEO at 44-bed Wilson Memorial Hospital in south central Texas in 1985, then moved to RE Thomason Hospital in El Paso, where he worked from 1989-92. He joined the Kaiser Permanente organization in Northern California for a four-year stint in 1992. After Kaiser, Delgado moved back to Texas for CEO positions with organizations in Brownsville and San Antonio before starting his own health care consulting business in San Antonio in 2000.

Delgado said he and his wife will be looking for a home in the area. His family includes twin daughters in their early 20s and a son who is nearing high school graduation.

Delgado is working under a three-year contract and will earn $450,000 in base pay.